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On September 02 2010 09:38 imbecile wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:14 NATO wrote:
Alternative explanation: Racial differential in skill scaling:
I think this has very little to do with skill scaling. It's simply a result of promoting for wins and demoting for losses. So someone who wins a lot quickly disappears from the lower ranks, and in the lower ranks the win percentages necessarily are always near the perfect balance. That's the point of the whole system. At the top there is no more promotion, so any discrepancy will accumulate there. When there is a group that consistently adds up more wins than everyone else, there will be more of that group at the top. And the most obvious group that consistently gets more victories than everyone else is terrans. And just the fact that they are terrans is a sufficient explanation. And it's the only explanation that the data allows. Because every other explanation needs data that is not available, and frankly is a hard sell with a lot of unreasonable assumptions. Now what exactly causes this high terran win rate, that can't be swept under the rug, that is a a different question. All you can say for now, that it is more likely/easier for terrans to win.
This should be in the OP; I don't think most people understand it
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Add tank overkill, buff damage, nerf the marauder, add a tech building. Done.
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On September 02 2010 09:04 NATO wrote:
Alternative interpretation of the data: zerg is really boring to play. For the high level, Terran has a lot more options making it more fun for skilled players, thus the better someone is, the more likely they are to play Terran, and less likely to play zerg. Similarly, mildly skilled players will find protoss the funnest because they are fairly straightforward, easier to control (read: larger units = easier to click on), but still have a reasonable amount of variety.
Summary: Currently more skilled players are less likely to zerg as their race than any other race.
And that would be OK? Zerg not being fun to play?
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These results show that Random is clearly underpowered.
And that would be OK? Zerg not being fun to play?
I don't see where in his post he said that's OK. As a Random player I actually think the same thing: Zerg isn't too terribly weak in terms of balance. Patch 1.1 will resolve the current deepest imbalance of Reapers, but even that isn't too bad until you face Terrans of 1100 Diamond or higher.
However, when I draw Zerg I usually sigh because I know the same routine is coming. Speedlings into either a baneling bust if they (hopefully) leave themselves open to it, or it's time to play a macro war while the enemy P or T enjoys a significantly easier macro and micro game. Lair tech opens up a few possibilities but I feel like at that point, one wrong move by me as Zerg leads to an instant loss.
Overall playing as Zerg is one dimensional, taxing and frustrating because it's the only race I feel where I can out-macro and out-micro to a large degree and still lose to A moving, inferior players with one mistake.
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I'm interested in why random starts off high, dips in the middle, and goes back up, in a really consistent manner too.
Anyone have a plausible explanation for this?
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On September 02 2010 11:44 roronoe wrote:
I'm interested in why random starts off high, dips in the middle, and goes back up, in a really consistent manner too.
Anyone have a plausible explanation for this?
Players start out wanting to play all races. Than as they get better they pick one race to work on. Than at highest level they play random for surprise advantage or they try to understand and get good at all races.
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I think the most blatantly obvious point here is that Zerg sucks.
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On September 02 2010 08:14 blacktoss wrote:
ITT: People who don't know statistics throwing around jargon like 'sample size'.
"Terran players make up the majority of 1300+ Diamond ladder players" - FACT. This is a population census. It is fully comprehensive in what it measures. There is no confidence to consider. These are the exact numbers for the moment in time when they were collected.
"Terran players make up a disproportionate amount of 1300+ Diamond ladder players in a way that can't be attributed to random chance." - Fact? You can't readily see this from the data. You must use something like a chi-square test to determine the confidence you can attach to this statement. I think it would be a good thing if someone did this with the raw data. Preferably someone with a more sophisticated background than one year of college statistics (moi).
"Terran players make up a disproportionate amount of 1300+ Diamond ladder players and it is because Terran is imbalanced." Fact??? This would be very hard to determine conclusively, and you can't even ascribe a confidence to this claim with the data available. However, under reasonable assumptions, it is a reasonable claim.
Other claims, like "Terran is more prevalent in higher leagues because more people play it because of the campaign" are more readily testable, but require sampling of campaign play data with respect to skill level.
I really wish people would pay more attention to this post. Because they aren't this thread is just derailing into senseless whining with little understanding of what the data do and don't tell us.
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On September 02 2010 07:57 Mikilatov wrote:
Pretty eye-opening, it seems.
I'm glad that this graph pulls up an interesting point though, Terrans aren't really that overpowered except at high levels in the hands of 1000+ point diamond players.
No, that is not the correct way to read the graph.
Think of it this way: given an Auto Match-making system (AMM) that pits you against opponents whom you are about as likely to win against as you are to lose against, there should be a population spread relatively similar to the overall popularity of each race on a global level (e.g. if 25% players play Zerg, 35% play Protoss, 30% play Terran, and 10% play Random, then you should see numbers similar to those on most rank intervals).
The only place where racial imbalance should begin to make a break in this spread is in very high-level play. If, say, Terran was overpowered, then you could see Terran players who belong at Diamond 500 skill-wise ranked at Diamond 700; they are less skilled than their Protoss and Zerg counterparts at the Diamond 700 level, but the racial imbalance props them up.
However, when you have the best players of the world who are at the "skill cap" (you can define this as 1300+, 1400+, 1500+, etc), if there really is a racial imbalance that props up your rank, then that's a lot more evident. You'd expect to see something like 30% Terrans at the 1500+ level, but there are 60% instead- you'd expect about half of those are getting propped up by the racial imbalance.
TL;DR: It is easiest to see racial imbalance at the very top skill ranks, and the data suggests pretty strongly (IMO) that there is one in favor of Terran and POSSIBLY in detriment of Zerg (Zerg underpowered argument is less strong because it's only evident at the 1400+ mark, with a very small population size of 60).
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538 Posts
people in this thread absolutely infuriate me, the terran imbalance bullshit is seriously to a point where i cant believe it. im not saying anything regarding balance of the game, but for fuck sake just stop fucking whining, maybe if P and Z players learned how to play the fucking game instead of spending their entire fucking day writing garbage on teamliquid they would get somewhere. lets look at a few very basic facts that require absolutely no data to be proven
#1 the first game released is from the terran campaign
#2 every fucking post in every god damn starcraft 2 forum says something about OMFG TERRAN IMBALANCED WAT 2 do OMNFG.
these 2 factors alone are going to encourage a ton more people playing terran. more people playing a race is going to lead to a greater development in strategies, leading to a more developed race
lets look at some very basic statistics for all of the illiterate 12 year old retards who dont understand how to interpret anything that doesnt tell them UR A GOOD PLAYER U JUST LOST CUS THE GAME IS IMBALANCED
number of players at a given level of play does not correlate with balance. AT ALL. lets say fayth made a post in sc2 strategy saying he would give 1000$ to every player who earned 1500 rating as zerg. boy these graphs would look alot different wouldnt they. does that mean that zerg is all of a sudden overpowered and stronger then terran? no.
the dumbest thing by far in this thread is the 1600 and 1500 rating level graph, by far. anyone whos done anything in statistics (or has half a brain) knows that a sample size of 19 (YES THERE ARE 19 PLAYERS ABOVE 1500) is not an adequate sample size to judge something as complex as game balance. IM A MORON, WHY IS THIS PETZERGLING? each 1 person on the graph represents over 5% of the total population. lets say a T player with 1501 rating plays a Z player with 1499 rating and the Z player wins (LOL CANT HAPPEN TERRAN OP) this brings an adjustment to our graph of over 10% relative data. considering people at this level play upwards of 10 games a day. proof that this sample size is retarded? here i just re calculated the numbers courtesy of sc2ranks.com and put them on a graph
![[image loading]](http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/9837/lolimbalanve.jpg)
OMFG PROTOSS UPSWING NOW PROTOSS IS IMBALANCED.
no the race of players in the top 1500 fluctuates this much on a daily(hourly?) basis
k im done see you idiots in disneyland
User was temp banned for this post.
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Something I'd like to see is the compared win/loss rations per race for random players. Random players should have roughly equivalent experience and skill with each race, and if there is a trend towards random players doing better or worse overall with a race, that would indicate an OP/UP race imo. What made me think of this was taking a look at Danrok's stats page (http://www.danrok.com/stats/) where his win rates for T/P/Z are 56/57/50. I don't think it's possible to pull that info out of sc2ranks.com... maybe that's only info that Blizzard will know.
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On September 02 2010 13:14 petzergling wrote:
people in this thread absolutely infuriate me, the terran imbalance bullshit is seriously to a point where i cant believe it. im not saying anything regarding balance of the game, but for fuck sake just stop fucking whining, maybe if P and Z players learned how to play the fucking game instead of spending their entire fucking day writing garbage on teamliquid they would get somewhere. lets look at a few very basic facts that require absolutely no data to be proven
#1 the first game released is from the terran campaign
#2 every fucking post in every god damn starcraft 2 forum says something about OMFG TERRAN IMBALANCED WAT 2 do OMNFG.
these 2 factors alone are going to encourage a ton more people playing terran. more people playing a race is going to lead to a greater development in strategies, leading to a more developed race
Your first point is a reasonable one. Your second one is starting from an assumption and working backwards (assuming that complaints are baseless, which therefore causes unwarranted unpopularity of Zerg), rather than starting from evidence and working to a conclusion.
And if you count the number of units Terran has available, and the number of abilities they have available, you'll see that they simply have more than Zerg, period. Terran isn't better developed because more people play it. More people play it because it is better developed. This is mathematically provable.
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On September 02 2010 13:14 petzergling wrote:
the dumbest thing by far in this thread is the 1600 and 1500 rating level graph, by far. anyone whos done anything in statistics (or has half a brain) knows that a sample size of 19 (YES THERE ARE 19 PLAYERS ABOVE 1500) is not an adequate sample size to judge something as complex as game balance.
19 is a decent size. Someone really needs to crunch the numbers here. There are statistics you can do, and you can establish uncertainties rigorously even at low sample numbers.
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I'm SO confused...
Blizzard has already accepted that a balance patch is needed. They have already released information regarding what will be in the balance patch...
Balance patch 1.1 is coming out, it is happening and there is no denying it.
So why are there still players in complete denial?
Game is not perfectly balanced, nerfs are coming, denial is just willful ignorance at this point.
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On September 02 2010 13:14 petzergling wrote:people in this thread absolutely infuriate me, the terran imbalance bullshit is seriously to a point where i cant believe it. im not saying anything regarding balance of the game, but for fuck sake just stop fucking whining, maybe if P and Z players learned how to play the fucking game instead of spending their entire fucking day writing garbage on teamliquid they would get somewhere. lets look at a few very basic facts that require absolutely no data to be proven #1 the first game released is from the terran campaign #2 every fucking post in every god damn starcraft 2 forum says something about OMFG TERRAN IMBALANCED WAT 2 do OMNFG. these 2 factors alone are going to encourage a ton more people playing terran. more people playing a race is going to lead to a greater development in strategies, leading to a more developed race lets look at some very basic statistics for all of the illiterate 12 year old retards who dont understand how to interpret anything that doesnt tell them UR A GOOD PLAYER U JUST LOST CUS THE GAME IS IMBALANCED number of players at a given level of play does not correlate with balance. AT ALL. lets say fayth made a post in sc2 strategy saying he would give 1000$ to every player who earned 1500 rating as zerg. boy these graphs would look alot different wouldnt they. does that mean that zerg is all of a sudden overpowered and stronger then terran? no. the dumbest thing by far in this thread is the 1600 and 1500 rating level graph, by far. anyone whos done anything in statistics (or has half a brain) knows that a sample size of 19 (YES THERE ARE 19 PLAYERS ABOVE 1500) is not an adequate sample size to judge something as complex as game balance. IM A MORON, WHY IS THIS PETZERGLING? each 1 person on the graph represents over 5% of the total population. lets say a T player with 1501 rating plays a Z player with 1499 rating and the Z player wins (LOL CANT HAPPEN TERRAN OP) this brings an adjustment to our graph of over 10% relative data. considering people at this level play upwards of 10 games a day. proof that this sample size is retarded? here i just re calculated the numbers courtesy of sc2ranks.com and put them on a graph OMFG PROTOSS UPSWING NOW PROTOSS IS IMBALANCED. no the race of players in the top 1500 fluctuates this much on a daily(hourly?) basis k im done see you idiots in disneyland
Why were not banned/warned for this post?
Simply cussing and insulting community members is not a solid argument.
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I was more willing to buy into this terran IMBA BS before I watched CellaWeRRa's stream... Zergs should watch CellaWeRRa before they determine Terran is too easy. Either CellaWeRRa is the best player in the world period or there simply isn't as huge a divide as numbers/toss/zerg players would lead you to believe. I see Cella beating top terrans all day with zerg, and he makes it look relatively easy (which I know it's not but he does make it look pretty darn easy).
My feeling is that Terran has the easiest learning curve, protoss has the 2nd most difficult, and zerg has the hardest learning curve simply because of micro management needs aka creep tumors, larva, handling more expansions than your opponent at every moment in the game, figuring out a good balance of army to harvester composition with the limited amount of larva you get at a given time.
Since I know a lot of you probably played WoW, I think a fair comparison is to say Terrans are like the Female Night Elf Hunters of SC2 right now. They're just abundant and notorious for easy-mode so having arbitrary graphs and trying to correlate them to race balance is just naive at this stage of SC2s life. Not to mention most self-analyzing casters are Terrans, I often get people asking who streams Protoss or Zerg so they can learn like many do with terran streams but there aren't nearly as many of them.
A few more months and some balance patches will help even everything out I think. I also believe buffing races rather than nerfing powerful races is a better move. Terran is fun to play, nerfing them just nerfs the enjoyment factor. Instead they should buff zerg and make zerg more fun and keep Terran the way it is since it is fun the way it is if they must decide to "balance" it.
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On September 02 2010 13:27 Eschaton wrote:
Something I'd like to see is the compared win/loss rations per race for random players. Random players should have roughly equivalent experience and skill with each race, and if there is a trend towards random players doing better or worse overall with a race, that would indicate an OP/UP race imo. What made me think of this was taking a look at Danrok's stats page (http://www.danrok.com/stats/) where his win rates for T/P/Z are 56/57/50. I don't think it's possible to pull that info out of sc2ranks.com... maybe that's only info that Blizzard will know.
Sorry for the double post.
While I do sort of agree with you that random players get the whole scope, random in ladders is different than race picking.
I am talking mainly about holding off cheeses, which seems to be so very popular in sc2. Myself as a random player, very rarely have to deal with early cheese shananagins unless its one of "those" types of players (just playing for wins and not improvement).
When I played zerg for a day, i got cheesed more than 50% of the time, as my random zerg, I have ALOT more options for openings.
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Dear all the terrans that are saying this means nothing (also especially petzergling): It's not just the 1500+ player stats that is overwhelmed with terran. It's from 1200~1500, so sample size of over 300, which obviously isn't set in stone, but also isn't ignorable. If it was just 1500, or just 1400~1500 i would understand the argument, but this is much more wider ranged than people saying "oh it's only 19 people".
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Take the data and draw your own conclusions?
Mine is very simple:
It doesn't take a fucking graph to realize that terran is just easier to play, has the best units cost for costs and the best synergy among all the possible unit combos You really have to try to make a bad comp as terran that is not gonna give problems to your opponents.
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EPT
